


Desiderare

by Ivaleen



Series: Faith [3]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Post-Azran Legacy, Regrets, Separation, attempt at brotherly bonding, descole can still be a sentimental asshole, especially when he's drunk, struggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaleen/pseuds/Ivaleen
Summary: Everyone thought him dead. He does not owe anyone an explanation. However, as months pass, he starts thinking that maybe there is someone, out there, who should be told the truth.Or: how Descole dealt with his loneliness post-AL.
Relationships: Hershel Bronev & Theodore Bronev, Hershel Layton & Desmond Sycamore, Jean Descole & Hershel Layton
Series: Faith [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013166
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Desiderare

**Author's Note:**

> for those of you who already read "requiem aeternam" and "lux ex tenebris", here's a sequel, or a different point of view of the events - because descole struggles as well as layton and because i'm doing level-5's job in their stead

It is too late to start again and pretend nothing happened. It had never been a suitable choice anyways—he couldn’t very well show his face once more in front of them after everything he’d done. At best, they would awkwardly laugh, pretend it is one of his endless personas, or a joke for that matter, and then they would coldly dismiss him for the rest of his life. At worst… well, he still couldn’t quite put a finger on what they could do in this regard. Scold him? No, it would be too nice. They were capable—they had a thousand times the right—of worse. Still, he couldn’t fathom what they would do if such a situation happened.

Descole found himself doubting once more. Ever since Raymond picked him up from the crashing ruins, he hadn’t been the same. He had no more purpose in his life, no light, no target—so to speak. Ironically, bringing down Targent had cost him the one and only target of his life.

Or maybe he had more? In his shadow, there was still a man following him, haunting him. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he had spent thirty years of his life hoping one day, he would be reunited with his long-lost brother. And thirty long years cannot be forgotten that easily, no matter how much you try to erase them. Well, precisely, he wanted to erase his mistakes. How many times had he wished he could just wake up the next day with no reminiscence of what he had done, or just knowing everything had been different? After all, he _had_ tried to kill Layton, at least once deliberately. It was perhaps the biggest mistake he’d made—it was tormenting him at night, at day, and sometimes all the time. What he imagined to be his dying confession didn’t ease much of that pain. He still hadn’t provided his brother an apology anyway. Had he died that day in the ruins, killed by a mere mummy—he still couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that him, the man who had always been handling robots or some other odd machine deprived of a soul, had almost been struck dead by one—Layton wouldn’t have been able to do much of that confession of his. He would have been left alone with the burden of knowing thirty-plus years too late that his biological mother was dead, and that his father was a heartless, ruthless, calculating man who stopped at nothing to see through his goals.

_But didn’t I behave the exact same way, after all? I am a monster. (Probably a family thing)._

However, Hershel Layton didn’t know Descole was still alive. To him, it didn’t change much that it wasn’t the mummy who took his life—or tried and failed to. _He has to believe that I fell down the ruins. After all, wasn’t that what I wanted him to think?_

Selfish. The no longer masked man didn’t want to acknowledge it, but a voice in the corner of his head could not stop talking, repeating over and over that same word. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish—SeLFISH...SELFISH…!

It was driving him mad. A new madness substituted an old one. Story of his life. Redemption had to be still long ahead—and perhaps there wasn’t even a chance for him to be redeemed. Trying to kill the brother he had lost and he still loved deeply had been the most cruel thing he had done in his life; refusing to tell him the truth and to ask for forgiveness, tricking him on purpose into believing he killed himself was the most selfish thing he had done in his life. A long record of mistakes, miscalculated strategies. No sorries could erase what was. He would never wake up in an alternate universe where everything would be going well. It was just one more selfish attempt on his part to set him free of the chains he had himself tied up around him.

But how could he accept the truth? He wasn’t himself when it happened. Still, it was no reason to attribute his faults to somebody else.

He had always lived that way. There was always _someone else_ , someone responsible, someone who had to take the blame. And it wasn’t entirely wrong—every mischief that struck him during his forty-year life had not always been his fault. The kidnapping of his parents, the separation from his little brother, the death of his second family…none of this had been his fault. Atrocious though it may have been, he couldn’t be held accountable for the loss of all these people. He’d spent years trying to change his mind about the death of his wife and daughter—oh, how often he thought he’d done something wrong—and, even if talking about it was always striking a nerve, he had finally come to terms with the fact that they were indeed dead and that it was Target’s cruelty that took them always from him, and not his own actions.

But the pain he forced upon his own brother was _his_ fault. This time, nobody else could take the blame. It was only him and his conscience. His need—no, his _burning desire_ , his obsession—for revenge had driven him mad, but it was still him who acted the way he did. If he couldn’t change anything about the past anymore, he could choose to act differently in the future—with _someone else_.

And so he sat at his office in the middle of the night and quickly looked for a piece of paper. He was frantic—his writing could attest of that. The words, the thoughts, the feelings raced through his mind and he had to find something to begin with. _Something not too sentimental will do._

“ _Layton,_

_Ah, how I would love to see the look on your face. You probably wonder how it can possibly be happening. You probably always thought I was dead, after all. Well, let me clarify one thing for you: I am not dead, and this is no dream…”_

* * *

It would be quickly forgotten, Descole thought. At least, that’s what one part of himself hoped. The most realistic option would have to be Layton trying to figure out where he was, and how he could reach him back. But Descole, no matter how much he wanted to see him again, didn’t want to be found. Not yet. He wanted this to be one-sided. He had spent too many years being used to stay in the dark.

Still, though he feared the outcome of his action, he _had_ to go through with it. It took him four hours to decide that he would indeed send it, and that it would not be thrown in a dark drawer.

Another part of himself could not stop from hoping that Layton would indeed stand one day outside his porch. Now that Raymond had regained his liberty—he didn’t have much choice, Descole didn’t need his faithful butler by his side to stay a broken husk of a man—the house he’d decided to buy felt too empty. Sure, sometimes, Raymond came to check up on him, but it was the only company he could hope to find—the only _family_ he had left. There was still Hershel…no, Theodore, but nothing would ever be the same. Was Theo even still here? He had gone thirty years ago with the Laytons. No brotherly bonding could ever be happening; after all, it was near impossible to start being a family from naught. The only realistic future to hope for was that of two archaeologists spending some time side by side, studying peacefully together, trusting that, one day, they’d indeed wipe out the past. Or at least, pretend they did. But they would be together and even—especially—with a fuzzy mind, Descole truly couldn’t hope for more. That was the truth anchored deep within his soul, the one truth he would never acknowledge. Not when he was sober.

* * *

  
  


A few minutes after having sealed the letter, exhausted, Descole fell asleep on his office, just as he used to do fifteen years back, when he still had a family, when he still could spend nights working on the Azran legacy, when he still had somebody by his side, when he still was happy, when… Such thoughts were wiping any energy out of him. It was always thus. Unbeknownst to him, there _was_ indeed someone by his side. Too exhausted, he was never aware of it—it was a well-kept secret, but a secret kept only from him.

That night was no different from the others: Raymond was there. When he entered the room to check up on Desmond, he noticed a half-emptied glass of wine by his side.


End file.
